Comment Re:Beach houses (Score 2) 230
The Great Lakes region has a significant percentage of the US's population and I would not consider it "way too risky."
Southeast Michigan, part of this region, has around 5.5 million people. We haven't had a significant natural disaster that I'm aware of in the last 100 years or more. We are not subject to tsunamis or earthquakes. We're far away from the ocean and fault lines. We aren't subject to volcanoes or rock slides. This region is flat; no mountains here. Remnants of hurricanes cause little more than some rain. We don't have the kinds of tornadoes you see in the central plains states. We might have one tornado every few years that causes a handful of deaths. We're not prone to severe flooding. We're used to minor floods that drain into the Great Lakes. They're simply an annoyance. It doesn't get very hot here, so you're not going to die of heatstroke. By the same token, due to the effect of the lakes, it doesn't get very cold here compared to other states at this latitude. In the southeast we don't get much snow, either. The snow dies out crossing the state.
In the pre-Columbian days, Michigan's lower peninsula had a large Native population, for very good reason.